I put up a 5x13 cold frame up just before Christmas. It's a triangular frame with 3.5mil plastic, no cuts or seams. On one long edge the plastic is buried, the rest are held in place with dirt bags (another of the many uses for "single-use" grocery bags). The three open edges are trenched about 4" deep and the dirt bags sit down in this trench on top of the plastic. It's pretty tight but it does breath adequately and if temperatures get over 55 with direct sun I open the ends. Soil temperatures inside are consistently 7 degrees warmer at a depth of 3" even with overcast skies. The soil when I last measured was 52 inside and 45 outside. After a recent warm snap when I had to vent it for two days the soil inside was 60 and outside was 55. I have peppers randomly germinating in there that were left over in the soil debris from last year. And so far the peppers haven't been killed by low 20's overnight lows. I put lettuce and onion transplants in there 3 weeks ago and they've seen high teens overnight without any frost damage. Hopefully this gives you an idea of what kind of temperature gain and what kind of frost protection you can expect. I use it to extend the season for lettuce in the spring which here is usually quite short because the hot weather comes so quickly after the last frost. But it's only covering 65sqft of a 860sf garden and it's not worth it ($) to me to try and cover a large enough area with plastic to direct seed warm season stuff earlier. I will put my transplants out there in their containers to get real sunlight but don't plant anything in the ground except the lettuce and onions. Just my 2 cents.

What I can't understand is why anyone would waste the time making or eating it. I think it is one of the old never-waste-anything recipes from pioneer days, an excuse to eat sugar water. Plus it is supposed to be made with old red cob field corn, not sweet corn cobs. Because all you are actually canning is flavored water. The instructions make it very clear that you cannot squeeze or press the cobs and must allow free, well-strained dripping only. In other words there is a high level of air and O2 exposure. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: Corn Cob jelly - NCHFP

I ordered from Harris Seeds last year and yes, they were swamped. I ended up getting 2 packets of everything - I think because they filled my order twice. So I have still-sealed seeds for this year. I was very satisfied with the seeds I received, though I was disappointed that they did not have Juliet tomatoes. But neither did anyone else. Pam, I wondered as I went back through last year's seeds who Garden Trends was/is. I see on their website that they had created the Garden Trends brand to target home gardeners (like myself). Early this year they merged the two operations. It appears that Garden Trends became the parent company for Harris Seeds and two small greenhouse and growing supplies and equipment sales - seed starting equipment and hops harvesting (acquired 2021) as well as a wholesale seed company. After 3 generations, Harris Seeds was bought in 1987, who incorporated as Garden Trends, Inc., DBA Harris Seeds. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/harris-seeds-will-continue-to-serve-home-gardeners-under-legacy-brand-301300086.html The current president and CEO, Ken Wasnock, took that position in 2016; he appears to be a corporate hotshot. (Ain't the internet great?) I'm really looking for a seed supplier in the mid-South - like central or southern Indiana, middle or western Kentucky or Tennessee, so I can have more confidence that the flowers will do as well here as they do in New York. The petunias I bought last year were beautiful and germinated and grew well, but they suffered in the hot sunshine of southern Illinois. Come late summer they perked up and are still blooming.

looks like nice parkland! are those fruit trees or just ornamental? by the way, some growers from thailand ship internationally - it all depends on agro import rules where you are and how fast the plants can ship so as not to die! may be better selection/shipping from australia? rainy Hilo on big island in hawaii /carribbean/thai/philippines/aussi tropics - would be similar to your area somewhat. there are subsets of garden web for australia/europe/etc i'll poke around to find some links for seed/fruit shippers in asia. i like learning and reading about tropical anything :). by the way you should have some incredible alocasia/colocasias (elephant ears) locally - are you familiar at all with them? colocasias are edible. prime example is taro - traditional hawaiian crop. not that i like it myself. but there are various kinds of very tasty tropical sweet potatoes that you might grow instead: yams, batatas, boniatos (cuban white sweet potato). also you should be able to grow monstera deliciosa - it produces an edible large fruit (cousin of swiss cheese houseplant). peas like it cool, but some beans can def take hot/humid like lima beans and some you can eat fresh from the pod. and all are available as seeds. e.g. from australia but shipping only locally - see tropical beans at the end. http://www.greenharvest.com.au/SeedOrganic/VegetableSeeds/Beans.html it's worth looking into indian stuff (which i know very little about, except i can see it in the freezer in the supermarket!). they grow all sorts of beans/long squashes in the steamy south. oh, you might be able to get some seeds/info/sites thru UK on that! found what i think is a good place in philippines (at list to start looking, not sure about international shipping) - info on fruit trees.ships nursery trees. http://www.dizonexoticfruittrees.com/index2.htm it was referenced last year - Q on shipping/visting with recommendation on http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=3111.0 seems to be a very active and useful forum too! here some useful links info/growing hawaii/fl/china http://www.lycheesonline.com/links.cfm this is Caribbean puerto rican site(us territory): they ship internationally. even just getting familiar with names can take time:) http://www.montosogardens.com/tropical_fruit_trees.htm